Trying to Puzzle Something Out...

Like with any other author, I want to be read.  As many of you know, I have a free short available for download.  Occasionally, I cruise through free horror shorts on Kindle to see what's what.  I have no ego about someone writing a better story than mine or just being a flat-out better writer than me.  There's always someone better. 

What I'm trying to puzzle out are the free stories that are terribly written.  Right now, 30 Minute Plan is ranked at 1700.  If you've read it then you have an idea of my style.  Perhaps you didn't like it, but you have a good grasp of how I write.  So when I look at the top ten free horror stories and I download a couple, I wonder how they have so many more downloads.  Some, not all, and I certainly won't point any fingers, are horrible.  And I'm not just talking about formatting mistakes, because in my infancy on Kindle I had a few of those, but poorly written, poorly thought-out and poorly executed stories are ranked SO much higher. 

I'd like to ask a couple of these guys where exactly they're promoting.  They must have a means of access I don't because word-of-mouth only travels so far.  30 Minute Plan's lowest rating was 3 stars and that was by someone who actually liked it, but thought there should have been more to the story's world.

I must ponder this.